Monday, September 30, 2013

I have practically no time to write this week but I LOVE IT HERE in Brasil and
being out in the mission field doing real missionary work is AMAZING!! My
trainer's name is Sister Saito, she's Brasilian, amazing, and I love her. We
have had so many great experiences together.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Tudo bem? Tudo está bem aqui no CTM! I finally made it
to Brasil!!! The trip was long, but it made me all the more excited to
finally be here! Tuesday I left the MTC at 4:30 AM, left the Salt Lake Airport
at 11, arrived in Georgia at 5, left for São Paulo at 9, and arrived in Brasil
at 8:00 Wednesday morning. We finally made it to the CTM around 10:30, bringing
my total travel time to over 26 hours! Not as bad as it could be, but
definitely not my favorite way to spend a day.

So yeah, the Brasil MTC is great in many ways, and
different in many others. For starters, it's tiny. I guess not tiny, because
there are way smaller MTCs out there, but there are like less than 200 people
here, so coming from Provo with over 4,000... Yeah. Pretty small. The food
though! Ah... Muito bem! Delicioso! I eat rice and beans and meat for two meals
a day, and I totally love it. :) Another different thing is that we're not
allowed to take pictures here, except on P-day, and we can't send any pictures.
That's a bit of a bummer. But an awesome difference between here and Provo is
that we're allowed to wander the streets around the CTM on P-day and go to
stores and buy stuff and talk to people! It's awesome! We just got back from
doing that, and I bought a churro from a street vendor that was to die for.
Made my day. I wasn't supposed to have my P-day until next Thursday, because that's
when my district has their one and only P-day, but they gave me today off so
that I could go to the São Paulo temple (beautiful!) and email and wander the
streets of Brasil since I'm American and I'm only here for 12 days and I came
from the Provo MTC so it's been a little longer for me since I've had a P-day.
Also I think they took mercy on me because it was apparent that I was super
exhausted yesterday during my second orientation.

The reason for the exhaustion and for the two orientations
is that the CTM President wasn't aware that I had come from the Provo MTC with
10 weeks of training already. Because of that, I was supposed to stay in a
district with the Americans I arrived with, so the first day we all did
orientation together. Then that night, they decided to switch me to a new
district that would arrive the next day and leave for the mission field the
same day as me, because they're ALL BRASILIAN AND NO ONE SPEAKS ENGLISH!! So yep,
my companion is Brasilian, she speaks no english. The people in my district are
Brasilian, they don't speak english. My teachers are Brasilian and if they did
speak english, they probably wouldn't tell me. It's a pretty intense situation.
So yeah, yesterday I did orientation all over again, only this time it was all
in Portuguese, so by the end of the day I was waaaay exhausted!

My companion is so nice though! Her name is Sister Tomaz da
Silva, she's from Recife, and she's the nicest little Brasilian companion I
could have asked for! She is so patient with me and so helpful! It took us a
little while the first day of our companionship, but she has figured out how to
talk to me using vocabulary that I know so I understand. She even helps me
understand what other people are saying! If someone asks me a question and
I'm totally lost, I look at her with a "I'm totally lost!" look on my
face, and she rephrases it in a way I can comprehend. It's wonderful. :) As for
my district... I'm just hoping they'll get the hang of it soon, or that I will!
Sister Tomaz da Silva and I have a lot of fun though. We can communcate enough
that we can joke a little bit with each other, and tell funny stories. We had a
lot of fun yesterday morning while we were waiting for our district to get
here. I wanted to label things in my room using sticky notes, so I would point
to things in the room and say "Como se chama isto?" and she would
tell me, then I'd ask "Como se escreve?" and she would spell it for
me. Generally I got it right, because I learned how to say the names of letters
in Spanish, and it's pretty much the same in Portugês. Although there was one
time where I was trying to write makeup (maquiagem) and it turned out looking
something like MAKUGM. When my companion saw it, she laughed pretty hard, which
made me laugh pretty hard. I then said "Como se chama ISTO?" as I
held up the trash can with my failure inside.

Pretty much, life right now is really hard, but really
awesome! I can see myself growing already! It's starting to become easier to
understand my companion when she speaks quickly, and today I had a 40 minute
conversation with an elder from Argentina who has been learning Porgugês for
four weeks on the way to the temple, and then again on the way back! It felt awesome
to be able to communicate what I wanted to say (most of the time).

Monday, September 2, 2013

Since receiving the news that I
was cleared to leave a little more than a week ago, I've encountered very
upsetting and very uplifting news! The bad news was that I would have to wait
three more weeks for the next transfer before my mission president wanted me in
the field. The good news though is that they're sending me to the Sao Paulo MTC
for my last two weeks, so I'm still leaving for Brazil!! Yaaaayyy! I'm
leaving!! For Brazil! I'm flying to Atlanta tomorrow morning and leaving for
Sao Paulo tomorrow night and getting there Wednesday morning! I'm seriously too
excited. I can't process it.

So yes, about the rest of my
week. Neil L. Andersen came to our last Tuesday night devotional and spoke, so
that was really cool! He talked about the relationship between sacrifice and
love; how we sacrifice for the things that we love, and also how our love grows
for the things we sacrifice for. He talked about how the Atonement was the greatest
act of both love and sacrifice by both the Father and the Son, and how we can
show our love for them by the sacrifices we make to obey them. The only thing
we have that is totally ours to give them in return for the Atonement that is
not already loaned from God is our agency (time, money, talents, etc. are all
things he can give and take, but he will never take our agency). It was an
excellent talk, and the more I think about this concept and how it relates to
agency and obedience and the nature of God, the more insights I get!

My district got reassignments
on Thursday as well! One of my companions, Sister Jackson, is going to
CINCINNATI OHIO!! I told her it's the best mission in the world, behind Santa
Maria. ;) So keep your eye out for her! She's a ton of fun, and a great
missionary! My other companion Sister Russell left for Macon, Georgia this
morning! It's so exciting watching everyone go out, especially knowing that my
time is fast approaching!

The other most exciting thing
that happened to me this week is that an elder in my district, Elder Cobb,
wrote me a poem about cats!!! I personally think it's a masterpiece, so I
attached a picture of it. :)

I love you all! I'll email you
next week from Brazil!! :D Ate mais! Tchau!

Sister Gold

District 70E and Branch Presidency and wives (Sister Jackson
is sitting next to me, Sister Russell next to her)

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About Me

My name is Natalie Gold, and I'm serving my 18 month mission for the LDS church in Santa Maria, Brazil! I'm 19 years old and I love my family, my friends, my two cats, and most of all my savior Jesus Christ! I am so happy to be serving God's children in Brazil. Read all about my adventures here!